Readers may recall my earlier report on the strange weekend ouster of UVa president Teresa Sullivan last week where I suggested there might be a Michael Mann connection because supposedly he was offered the Kington chair, and the fellow whose name is on it allegedly called the emergency weekend stealth meeting leaving some board members behind. UVa has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting FOIA requests from the American Tradition Institute and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for Mann’s emails related to his publication of MBH98 done while at UVa, and from what I hear, this issue has been very unpopular with some alumni and has resulted in some fund raising issues under Sullivan’s tenure.
Now, in the middle of this turmoil, word on the street is that Michael Mann will not get the Kington Chair. Meanwhile Larry Sabato, Director, U.Va. Center for Politics reveals (via his Twitter Feed ) the mood at the wee hours of the morning end of the UVa board meeting (at 2:39AM) after the weekend coup ousting president Sullivan.
From The Republic it seems the faculty is pretty upset too:
University of Virginia asks rector, vice rector to resign after president’s ouster
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — University of Virginia faculty leaders on Monday demanded the reinstatement of the school’s president and the resignation of two board members involved in her ouster. Officials gave no sign of complying, but acknowledged they could have handled Teresa Sullivan’s abrupt departure better.
“We recognize that, while genuinely well-intended to protect the dignity of all parties, our actions too readily lent themselves to perceptions of being opaque and not in keeping with the honored traditions of this university,” Rector Helan Dragas said in a statement issued by the university.
“For that reason, let me state clearly and unequivocally: You, our U.Va. family, deserved better from this board, and we have heard your concerns loud and clear.”
That wasn’t good enough for members of the Faculty Senate, who earlier met privately with board members to demand the removal of both Dragas and Vice Rector Mark J. Kington. The Senate’s executive committee also requested that faculty be given a voting position on the board, known as the Board of Visitors.
full story at The Republic
h/t to Ryan Maue
[UPDATE: I trust Anthony will not object to my adding that the “Kington chair” he refers to is actually the Joe D. and Helen J. Kington Professorship in Environmental Change. It is a newly endowed professorship, and it was established by their son, Mark Kington, in the memory of his parents. Mark is active in UVA matters, and presumable is the man Anthony refers to as working behind the scenes with the Board. -w.]
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
My thought is that if this proves to be about AGW and Mann’s involvement, will it actually do us any good? My questions center around who was stonewalling the FOAI requests, and was Sullivan one of them? Everybody involved should leave. As long as we’re speculating devoid of much evidence, I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole group, president, rector, vice rector and BOV is all on the same side, but had a serious disagreement on how to proceed. Each time something happens at UVA we get the benefit of the Streisand Effect. Infighting actually helps us because it draws the story out over a longer period.
If they were smart they would use the David Letterman strategy: if a bad story is about to get out, get in front of it, handle it truthfully and get it over with. Dave got a blackmail offer from his producer to fork over a couple million bucks in trade for silence on his affairs in the rooms above his studio. Instead of paying off, he called the police, and went public with his indiscretions. As long as there is no resolution to the Mann story, people will keep digging and keep the story alive. Penn State whitewashed their Mann story, so that will continue to haunt them as well. At some point the story will come out, especially when people retire and tell what really happened at UEA, UVA and Penn. It is only a matter of time.
I had this weird idea that if Mann DOES get the Klingon chair at UVa, not only will we be able to get the UVa emails from when he wasn’t an employee, but we will NOW be able to get the Penn emails for an (soon to be) ex employee, and the icing on the cake – captains log, stardate 2012
Why would any university hire Mann now?
They would have to care more about using unprofessional methods of supporting the AGW meme than the strength and standing of their university in the long-run.
Pure speculation. There is not a shred of information to suggest that the internal politics of UVa has anything at all to do with Mann. And the commentators referring to the “Marxist” faculty clearly have no knowledge of the economics department or business school at UVa!
As always, there will be those who believe it is in their best interest will be the ones who claim to be upset and of course, everyone is on their side in keeping the gravy chain status quo. NOT!
A crowd of 2000, from a possible 21,000 students and almost 8,000 staff makes a whopping 6.8% deciding it’s an unpopular board. That assumes that everyone protesting is directly associated with the university.
If someone who has and probably will make seriously substantial donations to UVa has finally gotten upset about a chair/position/science that involves his name; so be it! It’s about time. Now if only Congress will start making similar noises. Once the gravy chain starts starving malignant growths, there’ll be plenty of CAGW alarmists under the bus.
“…That wasn’t good enough for members of the Faculty Senate, who earlier met privately with board members to demand the removal of both Dragas and Vice Rector Mark J. Kington. The Senate’s executive committee also requested that faculty be given a voting position on the board, known as the Board of Visitors…”
Something the UVa may not have thought out. I’m sure that when Kington created that “newly endowed professorship”, there was a healthy donation along with it.
If they make him too mad, he might just take his chair and go home (and take all that lovely money with it).
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2012/06/teresa_sullivan_fired_from_uva_what_happens_when_universities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.single.html
Yes Ed, that E. Warren. Breitbart has a nice piece on the two of them.
There seems to be a great deal of speculation here about this. In connecting the dots, I’d argue that what dots we have are widely scattered and could conceivably be connected in a number of ways that would provide widely different pictures.
I’d also point out that were there any hint that Ms Sullivan was asked to step down due to her views on CAGW, the reaction and comment here would turn 180 and be calling for the heads of those responsible.
As an alumnus of the University, the last few years have been filled with embarrassment as the University has flouted the law and protected Mann. Sullivan was hip deep in it as she was a full subscriber to the idea of the faculty being an enlightened class who should have to be accountable to the general rabble of the public and taxpayers. I am glad to see the BOV finally take a stand against an administrator. More power to them. The idea that professors have forgotten that they are employees is very true thoughout education, but especially so at the university level.
The resonable place for Mann to be would a position at the Pacific Institute to join “high-profile climate scientists (such as Gleick)”.
Greg
June 19, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Pure speculation. There is not a shred of information to suggest that the internal politics of UVa has anything at all to do with Mann. And the commentators referring to the “Marxist” faculty clearly have no knowledge of the economics department or business school at UVa!
###
There is not an economics department or business school that is not awash with Marxist. You would know this but your education has been provided to you by Marxist and they sort of left out some details such as the history of Marxism. Besides, it is not running around with a red flag yelling “Workers of the world unite” that makes one a Marxist. If someone sees everything through the lens of a Marxist word-view, one is a Marxist.
At this vague point of unkown reasons and players, it is easier to associate the reason to concern over image related to a questionable academic relationship with Elizabeth Warren and trying to become a premier research institute – leading to firing Sullivan without stating the reason. The protests are simply projection in reaction to not stating the reason. This seems similar to a bank firing an employee for theft but not wanting to be associated with it or to be subject to legal battles over the firing. Except for private health reasons, sudden unexplained resignations usually happen when a compromising situation arises and it is in everybody’s interest to sweep it under the rug as best as possible. In that case, the board and Sullivan expect to just ride out the waves of protest and let the whole thing die down. The board’s statement that they heard the protests about the lack of explanation loud and clear and then explained nothing is indicative.
Still, it could just be an insider power play by someone not liking the current direction and using other controversies as leverage. That seems less likely. The Mann controversy as the “primary driver” seems even less likely.
As a separate question, If you’re trying to become a premier research facility, how does the riddled work Mann has cranked out in the past and his current lame and self-serving diatribes help you? (It doesn’t, but if you’re trying to get the reputation for research that has had a huge political effect along with notoriety then you might want him back anyway. I think most universites would go with power and notoriety over an integrity first and above all approach. It pays better and controls the research at the same time.)
Does anyone know whether Kington wants to contribute to establishing a respectable science or was he just promoting climate scientists when that environmental chair was endowed? Were he or Sullivan either for or against Mann? Were he or Sullivan concerned by or in favor of the hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight divulging facts about the prior condut of Mann at UVA? Neither seems to have taken a position and that seems to remove a lot of opportunity for the kind of compromising situation that seems to have arisen to persuade her to resign.
Let me, as a Brit, ask a question that, I’m sure, many other non-US followers of this blog are wondering.
Why the h*ll is anyone interested in the internal politics of a small, unheard of (outside Virginia) University?
This continues to be the most absurd speculative thread in the history of this (normally outstanding) blog. Sullivan was forced out for economic reasons, with the charge apparently led by Peter Kiernan from the Darden School of Business. By all accounts (save this thread) this is a battle about the financial future of the University and the best strategy for remaining viable.
The idea that because the President of a University where Michael Mann once (briefly, years ago) taught has been forced out is somehow related to CAGW is just screamingly myopic. There are issues in the world beyond climate change.
There are thousands of people commenting on this story at the Charlottesville Daily Progress (city paper) and the Cavalier Daily (student paper) and have been op-ed pieces in the Washington Post. Not only do none of those commentators mention Michael Mann, I’d venture a good number of them don’t even know who he is.
REPLY: to Greg and others I did not suggest that Sullivan’s belief in CAGW or not was a factor, only that the huge cash outlay defending Manns email from FOIA requests might be a factor, along with the Kingman chair issue. I also have other inside information (sent to me unsolicited) that I am not at liberty to divulge at the moment until I can check it out. – Anthony
Greg says: (after commenting that there was just pure speculation at WUWT)
June 19, 2012 at 12:45 pm
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/2012/06/teresa_sullivan_fired_from_uva_what_happens_when_universities_are_run_by_robber_barons_.single.html
Greg that’s an excellent piece. Lot of insight and wisdom.
The trickery Elizabeth Warren and Teresa Sullivan were accused of (see link above to Breitbart) has an uncanny similarity to Mann’s trickery: obstruction of data, with suspicion that this obstruction has been to hide fakery. So there could be a connection with Mann. And would publicity compare both these obstructions to the highly-damaging obstructive activity at another Uni this year, that for years had shielded a pedophile? Is this the reason for silence?
How big a dent has Mann’s court case costs been, on the overall UVa budget?
There are several comments above which suggest that our interest in events at small, obscure, second rate universities is; ‘irrelevant’ nay ‘screamingly myopic’!
Could I just remind these commenters that the ‘s’cientific foundations of the Global Warming Fraud were laid at small, obscure, second rate probably because the likes of Mann and Jones would never have gotten away with it at more reputable Universities.
We should indeed be interested in what goes on in instituions such as these.
charles – my point is the opposite. UVa is not a second rate university. It is a huge university with a well-known business school, a top-rated law school and a huge hospital. It is much bigger than one associate professor from ten years ago and a single FOI case.
BTW, this is also the University from which Fred Singer is professor emeritus.
UVA isn’t insignificant. It’s law school is one of the best in the US–perhaps THE best.
That’s my current best-guess too. The Board’s unanimity supports this interpretation.
Yes; excellent article; Siva Vaidhyanathan is one of my favorite hard-to-the-left authors penning/feigned ‘works’ for the likes of: (1) New York Times Magazine (an insert on Sunday to the NYT paper), (2) The Nation (cough-cough caution: HARD LEFT! cough-cough but I love watching Hurricane Katrina vanden Huevel ‘make a twisted argument’ based on what seems to be ‘severely altered reality’), (3) MSNBC.com, and (4) Salon.com while involved with ‘Media Studies’ (whatever those are) and Law (law? … supposedly) at the University of Virginia.
If he used the term “robber-barons” once he used it at least a dozen times; I had not realized that some adults are still enamored of ‘bogey men’ in their thinking processes supporting their need to apportion blame on others (primarily productive hard-working industrialists from the 1900’s!) for the world’s perceived ills today …
.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
To the question “That Elizabeth Warren?” the answer is yes: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300091717 and http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=224581 download at: http://bdp.law.harvard.edu/pdfs/papers/Warren/Med_Problem_Bankruptcy.pdf
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresa_A._Sullivan
Coach Springer says: @ur momisugly June 19, 2012 at 2:31 pm
This seems similar to a bank firing an employee for theft but not wanting to be associated with it or to be subject to legal battles over the firing. Except for private health reasons, sudden unexplained resignations usually happen when a compromising situation arises and it is in everybody’s interest to sweep it under the rug as best as possible.
_____________________________
ogerknights says: @ur momisugly June 19, 2012 at 4:16 pm
That’s my current best-guess too. The Board’s unanimity supports this interpretation.
____________________________
Yes that is my best guess also. Either that or she managed to tic-off some VIP(s) donors with mega-bucks.
As you said U Va is a major law school so the use of University funds (and therefore donor funds) to do a CYA on Mann while he is at Penn may not have sat well with someone(s) trained in the law.
I doubt this imbroglio has much of anything to do with Cuccinelli v. UVa, There’s not much public evidence that would justify jumping to that very speculative conclusion.
Extend and amend?
Reading for comprehension, PatK, a number greater than just a few of us are probably with more than just a little certainty concluding that your intention was to include a ‘not’ as part of this sentence as revised to include that term as shown below:
“Sullivan was hip deep in it as she was a full subscriber to the idea of the faculty being an enlightened class who should not have to be accountable to the general rabble of the public and taxpayers.”
I am happy to amend and extend your remark for this minor but important change on your behalf as both a taxpayer (although not in VA) and a member of the ‘general rabble’ who likes to see accountability generally (and generously) applied to all.
.